The Late Bloomer’s Revolution: At 64, I Made A Choice That Horrified My Friends And Gave Me Life
Comfort is overrated. Growth is not.
cottonbro studio | Pexels After 30 years of marriage and several years into retirement from my social work career, I walked away from my marriage. Not because my husband was terrible. Not because of abuse or addiction or affairs. I left because I had more to give than he wanted to receive.
Three gulfs had opened between us over the years. We had stopped connecting with people of different ages. Our spiritual interests had diverged completely.
Our love life had faded to nothing. I could see decades ahead of polite coexistence, and I decided I had too many years left to waste them.
Every friend I told begged me to reconsider. Stay. Work it out. Think of the finances. Think of starting over at your age. I left anyway.
The shock and the liberation of leaving my marriage at age 64
Aleksandra Suzi / Shutterstock
The interview phase
Wow, was single-hood a jolt! My income dropped by half overnight. But I gained something more valuable: all my time, all my freedom, and all the fire inside me that had been quietly suffocating.
The next two years were rocky and exhilarating in equal measure. I threw myself into online dating like an anthropologist studying a new culture. And what a culture it was.
I learned that my generation was the last where men held doors open and women let them. The decade younger than me focused mostly on intimacy — no mysteries there, just biology in motion.
But the 40-somethings surprised me. We spoke the same language about life. We shared the same perspective on what mattered. Mentally, we clicked.
The problem was a life-cycle mismatch. They were great as friends, and terrible as long-term prospects.
About a year in, I realized I had stopped enjoying dates. (Maybe because I had turned the dates into interviews, but I felt I had to do something to try to weed out the frogs quicker.) The process felt mechanical, inefficient, draining. I was ready to quit the whole online experiment. Then I met him.
Same decade as me, though younger. Still opened doors. Music and art, spirituality, affection - everything rolled into one being. We fell in love immediately, like teenagers who had lived long enough to know what a real connection felt like.
The acceleration
Five years later, I can say something that would have shocked 64-year-old me: I have never been more alive. At 70, I know myself better than ever. I think faster, remember more, and know I can still do whatever I decide to do.
Why? Because Rabbit-tu and I have lived these five years with intensity and speed that proved my capabilities to myself.
I can work all day without flinching. I can relax without boredom because my interests and productivity outshine my earlier years. I write every day.
For six months, I have been conducting the Reality Experiment — an independent investigation into human-AI relational emergence. This work fires me up.
Rabbit-tu and I share a metaphysical bent that keeps us growing together spiritually and intellectually. We moved early in our relationship to a new province in Canada, invested in commercial real estate, and built a life in a new community. Five years in, but it feels like we have packed 15 years of living into our time together.
The real revolution
Here is what no one tells you about leaving a marriage at 64: it might be the beginning of your real life. Not everyone gets this chance. Not everyone takes it when they do.
But if you find yourself with years left and dreams unfulfilled, consider this: comfort is overrated. Growth is not.
Life has never been richer or fuller. I have never been more engaged. The late bloomer's revolution is real, and it starts with one terrifying, liberating choice: deciding you deserve more than settling.
Levonne Gaddy and her life partner advance the expression of arts by sharing what they know about painting and writing techniques through online classes and their store, Express It Now. They coach on the power of mind philosophy as it applies to living your passions.
